


Invisible

by anr



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003) RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-01-02
Updated: 2006-01-02
Packaged: 2017-11-05 15:19:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/407951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anr/pseuds/anr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He finds himself sympathising with his character just a little too much.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Invisible

**Author's Note:**

> Request: James Callis, in some more-than-insignificant way.

  


* * *

**2003**

  


He's not sure what to make of her at first.

"You're a model?"

"Yes." She shifts a little on top of him, her knees pressing against his hips, and stares out the window. Behind her, the lighting crew are fussing with a broken klieg, but he keeps his eyes where they are -- on smooth skin and the curve of her shoulder blade, the hollow indentation at the bottom of her throat -- and wonders if she's bored.

"Done anything I would have seen?" She seems familiar enough, but he can't quite place her, can't quite decide whether his memory is real or assumed.

She shrugs. "Maybe. I don't know." She looks down at him -- he thinks she will do that often in the course of filming this miniseries -- and changes the subject. "Think we'll finish in time for lunch?"

"Lord, I hope so. I'm famished."

"Me too."

He's tempted to make a joke about models and their (supposed) eating habits, but doesn't. Maybe later, he thinks.

There's a crack, and muted whine, as the klieg snaps on again. Michael approaches the side of the bed.

"Sorry about that," he says, "you two okay to go on?"

"Sure," she says, smiling, and James nods, and closes his eyes, and moves his hands back to her thighs.

  


* * *

**2004**

  


It's frustrating, at first, filming the series. He has to do every scene at least twice -- once with Tricia, and once without -- and every time someone else accidentally looks at her they have to start over. What was an amusing situation in the miniseries is now a pain in the neck, having to memorise not only his lines but his own facial expressions and hand gestures, and then there's Ron, who impresses upon them each morning during read-throughs that Tricia is _not really there_ , over and over again, until James is sick of hearing about it.

He finds himself sympathising with his character just a little too much: plagued by a vision in red that only he is supposed to see, wishing more than a little that this wasn't the case at all. Life would be so much easier, he thinks, if she weren't in his head.

Then she smiles at him at the buffet table, and offers to split the last glazed doughnut -- laughs when he asks if she's deliberately leaving all the calories on his half -- and he realises that there are worse things than her attention to have a monopoly on.

The others learn, in time, how to look through her, how to act around them. He tells himself it's an improvement.

  


* * *

**2005**

  


He arrives late to Jamie's we-kicked-serious-arse-in-the-sweepstakes barbeque and the first thing he sees when he enters the backyard is Tricia.

She's standing in a knot of cast and crew, laughing with Katee and Grace and David and Eddie, and for just a moment he stands there and watches.

Watches Grace lean past her to touch Katee's arm briefly.

Watches Eddie wave to Mary and Tahmoh, who are coming up behind her with fresh drinks for everyone.

Watches Katee mimic a British accent -- might be his, might be Jamie's, he can't quite tell -- in response to something David says, setting them all off laughing again.

"James, hey! You finally made it."

He turns instinctively to greet Jamie. "Yeah, sorry, hey," and when he looks back, Tricia's gone.

Two and a half minutes of small-talk and Neha's apologies -- Josh has a cold -- later Jamie's mobile rings, and he excuses himself, so James wanders away towards the house.

He finds Tricia in the laundry, rooting through ice-filled coolers for something to drink.

"Hello stranger," she says. "I was beginning to think you weren't gonna show."

Aaron edges between them and grabs a beer. "Hey, James," he says, and James only just manages to nod in reply before Aaron walks away. He watches him disappear into the backyard and then looks back at Tricia.

"They don't see you," he says, and he doesn't mean for it to sound like an accusation, but she flinches anyway.

"I know." She shrugs a little then, like it's no big deal.

"Even off set... _they don't see you_." He tries not to sound horrified -- he knows it's just habit, and that they probably don't even realise they're doing it, let alone mean anything by it -- but it's difficult. She is all he _can_ see, most days, and he finds it inconceivable to fathom anything else.

"It's okay, James," she says, "honestly. I find it refreshing actually, after having being stared at for most of my life." She smiles, and selects a soda, wiping half-melted ice off its side. "Really -- I don't mind."

He watches her walk away, out the laundry door, to where Michael and Donnelly are manning the barbeque, and frowns. "But I do."

  


* * *

**2006**

  


Neha cleans out the attic while he's at the Comic Con -- they've been to'ing and fro'ing over converting it into a second den for awhile now -- and leaves the boxes in the garage for him to go through later. It'll be mostly junk, he knows, so he waits until he has nothing better to do before bothering himself with the chore.

Nothing better to do turns out to be a Thursday morning, near the end of hiatus, when he's alone in the house because Josh and Neha have gone over at her aunt's for the day and he's waiting on a call from his agent. Reluctantly, he drags the boxes into the den proper and finds himself a beer.

It's pretty boring at first -- an old tennis racquet, with half the strings snapped, Josh's old baby clothes and toys, Christmas decorations they never put up anymore and novelty mugs with chips in the rims -- but then he hits paydirt, finds a selection of LPs from his college days, and the nostalgia hits him hard, makes him smile, and he has REM spinning in under five minutes.

Another beer while he listens, and remembers, and the task's not quite so dull with the soundtrack to his education playing in the background. He finishes the first two boxes quickly -- reclaiming only a handful of items -- and drags over the third, dumping a heavy stack of magazines into his lap.

Tricia stares up at him.

All long limbs and barely-there clothing. A bright smile that flashes teeth, and eyes wider than he would have thought possible. She looks gorgeous and sexy (of course) -- she's promoting lingerie, he thinks, skimming the type superimposed over her left shoulder -- and like everything he gets to see every day at work.

He looks closer, and decides she looks nothing like the woman he knows.

He throws the magazine away.

  


* * *

**2007**

  


She slips away while everyone's still talking about it and, for just a moment, he considers ignoring her. Considers pretending he's just like everyone else and that he doesn't see her any more than they do...

... only that's not true, couldn't ever be true, and he's following her out the front door before he can stop himself.

Off the front step, down the path, past the parked cars lined up nose-to-tail in the driveway, and she's standing on the curb, staring down the street, looking for all the world like she's waiting for someone.

"It's just unexpected, you know?" she says, before he's even reached her side. She crosses her arms, like she's hugging herself, like she's cold. "I'm surprised, is all."

"I think everyone in there was, love."

She stops fidgeting at that, pauses, and then slowly looks at him. "You weren't."

"No."

She closes her eyes, just briefly. "Did you know?"

He shakes his head. "No."

"Then how...?"

"Little things." Like the way they always knew where each other was, without ever having to look. And how they always sat across from each other, or stood next to each other, like they were... _connected_... somehow.

Insignificant and silly things, too, like Jamie always ducking off to answer his mobile in private, while Katee sat in the break room and giggled softly into hers -- James remembers teasing them about how they'd trained their significant others to always call at the same time and winces, just a little. He should have put the pieces together sooner, he thinks. Should have realised what Jamie's divorce last summer really meant, other than the obvious.

Tricia's still looking at him, waiting for an explanation, so he gives her the only fact he has. "My agent called a couple of days ago -- said she'd been inundated with requests for a quote."

She nods. "Mine too. I said there was nothing to tell."

That's what he told his agent as well: _there is no story_. This impromptu we're-only-telling-you-all-now-because-we've-heard-that-tomorrow-it'll-be-all-over-gossip-rags get-together Katee and Jamie are throwing inside, however, means he'll probably have to change that to a more neutral, _no comment_ , in the morning.

He watches her shift from foot to foot, and glance up and down the street, and realises this is the first time he's ever seen her less than perfectly poised off set. "Do you disapprove?" he asks curiously.

"What? No." She grimaces a little, but her repetition is firm. "No, it's just... everything will change now. This makes everything different."

He almost asks, _how_? because this has most certainly been going on for months already.

He almost says, _no, it won't_ , because Katee and Jamie have, if nothing else, proven themselves capable of discretion.

But then he catches her looking -- _staring_ \-- at him, and her expression is quiet, and _wistful_ , and suddenly there's this hollow feeling inside of him. This feeling like something's been taken from him, some... _possibility_ , or chance -- no matter how remote or even unthought of it might have been only moments before -- and for just a second he can't breathe around it, can't even begin to contemplate all the might-have's and maybe's that have just been lost.

For two co-star's to pair up off set is one thing, he thinks. A scandal, maybe, if it's handled poorly, but certainly nothing unheard of.

For two _more_? No. God. It would be beyond inappropriate, and unseemly -- it would bury the show, paint rumours on everyone's careers -- it would ruin _everything_.

"Tricia, I --" He can't finish his sentence; isn't even entirely sure he knows what he was going to say anyway: _didn't know... didn't realise... need to... I'm sorry?_

"I know."

He thinks about touching her then, about maybe kissing her, while there's still time, while the possibility, though fading fast, still exists... but doesn't. There'll be opportunity enough for that on Monday, he realises, when they're back on set.

When it won't mean anything it's not supposed to.

She looks away first.

Shoving his hands into his pockets, he follows her lead. Looks down the street, at the parked cars, at the image of her in his peripheral vision, standing so tall beside him, looking just a little sad, and opens his eyes.

He thinks he's been rather blind himself. 

  


* * *

The End

**Author's Note:**

> ORIGINAL URL: <http://anr.livejournal.com/230752.html>


End file.
